Usenet Newsgroups Re: Attention Conservatives: Today, America Honors Organized Labor, So Put Down the BBQ and Get Your bum to Work From: hankvc@blackhole.lostwells.org (Hank) In article <7cmdnWb4Hcp_pBjRnZ2dnUVZ5rmdnZ2d@giganews.com>, F.H. <connectutoos@verizon.net> wrote: I wonder how much of the Faux News/Becktard crowd, who supposedly love our history, actually know why they get the day off today. Labor Day, an annual celebration of workers and their achievements, originated during one of American labor history’s most dismal chapters. In the late 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, the average American worked 12-hour days and seven-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages. People of all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air, sanitary facilities and breaks. Still...., why all the fuss? I’m quite certain the free market would’ve worked all that out...., eventually. Frank, I think that you should look a bit more deeply into the history of US labor law 1900-40.  The Lochner vs. New York decision in 1904, which comes across as pretty bizarre when you read it, was used to prevent states from regulating wages, hours, child labor, etc.  Generally accepted that the 1937 West Coast Park Hotel">Hotel Co. v. Parrish decision reversed enough of Lochner to allow some regulation of labor conditions.  A key figure in the Progressive movement to find a way to get children out of the work force was Louis Brandeis.  Essentially, what stopped child labor was not labor law, but the education movement to increase the age of attendance of children in school to include high school---something the public school systems never have been able to swallow.  That was in the 1920's.  Lochner vs. New York is a key decision in broadening the interpretation of the 14th amendment allowing federal law to override (and negate) state law.  That, of course, is still an issue, with the Arizona immigration statutes, Wyoming's attempts to enact what the state citizens want for wolf control, "right to die" issues in several states, DEA enforcement of anti-marijuana laws in states that have legalized medical marijuana, etc. etc.   There isn't any reason I know of to think that laissez-faire capitalism would have removed children from the workforce, put an end to sweatshops, etc. etc.  Hank Subject